In Transit review:
Note: An “In Transit” review is a story I feel is still “on its way”. This simply means a production isn’t complete or is in need of a rewrite. It also means I’m likely to revisit the story if it gets a rewrite.
Grimm's Cabinet of Spooky Stories by James E. Coplin
http://authonomy.com/books/42310/-grimm-s-cabinet-of-spooky-stories/
And here we go with another review.
Once again, though I really did enjoy this work, I have to say it
needs a good amount of work in some key categories before really
pushing for publishing.
The stories here feel a lot like camp
fire stories, the ones teens and kids tell each other to give
themselves nightmares. That’s not putting the stories down, as
actually creating a short story with enough personality to elicit an
emotion from you in less than ten minutes is not easy. These stories
will send chills down your spine and make you un-desirous to look
over your shoulder. The descriptions are captivating and the
direction is great.
There is a problem at the end of the
day however and that’s why I’m recommending the author go back to
the drawing board for a little while. The actual characters are very
hard to care about as individuals. Now when it comes to horror,
generally a bad character means a drug dealing psycho twit is our
protagonist. The stories certainly have nothing in that category.
What the stories are missing is any real feeling of attachment to the
characters before they run into trouble. The dread and suspense comes
purely from atmosphere and a slow steady pace building up suspense
with pay offs that are not entirely predictable. This means the
stories have personality, but not so much the characters. Stories
with personality, especially in a genre that seeks to elicit an
emotional response, are great. This means many of the scenes stuck
with me. However none of the characters really did. I’ll explain a
little more when I get to the character rating.
On the actual story rating, here’s
how it fared. With the highest possible score being 12 (with two
bonus points included) this series of stories made an 8.25. Really
not a bad showing and definitely worth a look for the curious.
However as I’ve said before, generally my rating system is pretty
lenient. If you don’t make a 9 at least, which sounds high, in
reality that means you need to do some work.
This IS a series of horror based
stories, so you might expect objectionable material to be rather
high. Well judge for yourself. The stories are not overtly gory, but
there is a natural amount of blood I’d say, so that’s a -2. Good,
bad and neutral characters do die, so that’s a -3 for realistic
killing. And a general -1 for horror in general. Really a -6 out of
a possible -25 isn’t bad. Actually this book could be read around
the aforementioned campfire to kids.
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Grimm’s Cabnet of Spooky Stories is a
great bunch of camp fire stories. Very rare is the full horror story
written these days that can elicit much of a reaction from me, but
these had me glued to my seat to see what would happen. On occasion I
did know approximately what the endings might be, however even when
it was a story I’d heard before, each story was told with an even
sense of suspense and atmosphere. Don’t pass this one up, it’s a
real treat and really there’s no reason you can’t read it to your
kids. Though fair warning, some members of the audience may sleep
with one eye open.
_________________________________________________________
And
with the author plug out of the way, here are the details of how the
score was decided:
Warning:
Spoilers may be ahead.
- Spelling/Grammar
Score:
¾
Why
yes, ¾ is my default score. As such to be honest, it doesn’t mean
much. This just means I found the occasional typo, but didn’t see
any real patterns to such. The author just needs a proof read or two
and he’ll fix this.
- Interesting Plot
Score:
1
Really
a few of the stories in this book are ones people have heard before,
however they are very well told. The story of the evil scare crow
isn’t one no one ever saw coming for instance, but that just makes
it all the better to see such a story told right. The author didn’t
“skip to the good parts” and instead let us wonder if the scare
crow would or would not come to life, and what exactly its intentions
were if it did. The author allows us to see bad omens, get suspicious
and wonder about what will happen, instead of having the scare crow
leap at someone bearing a machete. Strange as it seems, obvious and
blunt danger is less scary than subtly. Perhaps it’s just recalling
that childish sense of not having any idea what is or isn’t
dangerous, that makes us more afraid of the fin approaching someone
in Jaws, than the actual shark attack itself. Whatever the cause of
this phenomenon, the author here gets it.
- Good Direction
Score:
1
Suspense
has a lot to do with direction. If a story gives away too much too
soon, suspense is killed. However if the writer reveals too little,
the readers simply become confused. This writer was very good at
keeping me up with what was going on and adding just enough
foreshadowing to make me know something was amiss, if indeed
foreshadowing was needed.
- Author Interest
Score:
½
Yes,
this is the first time I haven’t given someone a full 1 in this
category. This author didn’t approach me to read his story, I
approached him after he backed me. I also don’t see much evidence
of him advertising. I would recommend if he really isn’t, he get on
that, this series is worth getting some movement on... well yes it
does need some polish, but that’s no reason not to show off what
the story has.
- Believable Main Characters
Score:
1
There
was nothing spectacularly realistic about the characters in this
series of short stories. Normally I don’t care too much about
realism in characters in non-contemporary fiction, however in horror,
there is the cliché of character’s only getting in trouble because
of chronic stupidity. There’s nothing the characters do in this
series that is inherently stupid. Perhaps ill advised, but no one
runs towards a serial killer with a machete, in a miniskirt while
wielding a twig. The characters do behave like real people might.
- Likable Main Characters
Score:
½
Finally
we get to the problem area. Did I like the main characters? Well I
didn’t hate them, but I couldn’t like them either. And here’s a
little catch, they weren’t
entirely void of personality. The trouble is, the personality traits
they had were only those required to get them into the problems they
got into. Their personalities were just another part of the stories.
This felt a lot like some of the watered down versions of the
Christmas Carol, where Scrooge’s motivations are never really
explored and he’s just painted as a jerk for the sake of it. I
suppose this is the challenge of writing good characters. They have
to do things that are NOT motivated by a need to move the story
along, and yet they can’t be seen doing so much irrelevant stuff
that the story feels like it has no direction. They have to stumble
over themselves when they’re NOT about to trip into something
important. They have to tell jokes that are just funny, not omens. I
reminded of all the times Sherlock Homles would be shown making
observations that did nothing to further the plot, and all the times
Watson was shown trying in vain to knock down his ego, even though
such didn’t do much to advance the initial story
- Likable Side Characters
Score:
½
This
story had plenty of side characters, and no, they did not exist
simply to rack up a body count. However they had the same problems as
the main characters. No personalities of their own. If I were to just
come out a say it, these stories feel like they need to be some five
pages longer each to flesh out all the potentially drawing
characters. (Course with some talent, they could just need one more
page each, but I wouldn’t try too hard for that.) I would tell the
author to not worry, letting the characters tell a few unnecessary
jokes and banter, will not ruin his pace, it will simply add a new
element. And now to say what I must, there’s a reason camp fire
stories stay around camp fires. If you’re going to write a few out,
go ahead and flesh out the characters.
- Good Scene Descriptions
Score:
1
The
atmosphere in these stories was so good it was chilling, literally.
My mind’s eye saw exactly was it was supposed to, and it never felt
like the author was pausing to examine a rock for no particular
reason. This was especially true in the scare crow story.
- Targeting
Score:
1
Anyone
into short horror stories will love this little series. It’s scary,
it isn’t mind numbingly stupid and it has great atmosphere. Take a
look, you won’t be disappointed.
- Broad Appeal
Score:
1
Too
often these days horror authors confuse revulsion with fear. Not this
one. There are no tons of blood and gore washing over the floor, or
scenes of torture porn. It’s just good old fashioned suspense and
atmosphere. As a result, you could read a few of these stories to
your older kids even. There aren’t even a ton of overt sexual
references that lead nowhere. But enough of me decrying what’s
wrong with the horror genre, yes, general audiences will enjoy these
titles.
